CHAPTER XII: PATRIARCHAL REGULATION.
§ 778. In very rude tribes, and especially in hunting tribes, where supremacy of the father depends on physical or mental superiority, no supremacy of the grandfather is known. But where the sentiment of subordination is deep, paternal control begets grandpaternal control, and the control of the great-grandfather. Naturally the authority of the father, strongly pronounced as we have seen among Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan peoples in their early stages, initiates the authority of the patriarch. And this, passing at his death to his eldest male descendant (or if he is not alive then to his eldest son), makes him the governor of the group, who, along with the other kinds of rule, exercises industrial rule.
Doubtless, as we see among the races named who have given origin to the leading civilizations, filial obedience has been fostered by ancestor-worship. The connexion between the two is clearly implied by the following passage from an article by Dr. Julius Happel in the Revue de l’histoire des religions.
“Aussi longtemps que vivent les parents, on doit, d’après la doctrine du Hsia-King, les traiter comme des dieux terrestres . . . Cette communauté de vie entre les membres d’une même famille doit se poursuivre jusqu’au delà de la mort . . . Tous les événements importants de la famille sont communiqués aux défunts aussi, en particulier tout changement dans la propriété ou le droit possessoral des ancêtres.”
Necessarily along with belief in the ghost of the dead father who is propitiated by sacrifices, and supposed to inflict Edition: current; Page: [432] evils if he is angered, there goes the belief that the living father may after death revenge himself on those who have angered him during his life. Hence there results a subordination to him far more profound than can otherwise be established. And this subordination continues, and even becomes greater, when he has become a grandfather or great-grandfather; since then the time is nearer at hand when he can use his supernatural powers to punish recalcitrant descendants.
Another factor conduces to patriarchal authority, namely, full recognition of the right of property. Sons who are independent of their father for maintenance, and sons who will inherit nothing at his death, lack one of the motives for obedience. Such confirmed respect for ownership as insures possession of his land and goods by the grandfather or great-grandfather, even when he becomes feeble, strengthens greatly the rule of the eldest male. This influence we may perceive operating among the ancient Hebrews. The traditions concerning Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and again concerning Joseph and his brethren, imply recognition of a father’s ability to dispose of his property as he pleases. The right of property is regarded as in a measure sacred.
§ 779. Some evidence observable among existing peoples may be set down. The simplest and clearest comes to us from Africa. Describing the condition of things among the Bechuanas, Alberti writes:—
“Un jeune Cafre ne se marie qu’après avoir obtenu le consentement de ses parents; un Cafre marié, eût-il lui-même des fils et des petit-fils, ne troque aucune pièce de bétail, ne conclus aucun marché, sans avoir consulté son père et obtenu son approbation.”
And he goes on to say that—
“Si un fils, à quelque âge que ce fût, ce comportoit mal envers ses parents, s’il refusoit opiniâtrément d’obéir surtout aux ordres de son père, quand ils sont équitables, ou qu’il ne suivît pas ses avis, il seroit sûr de s’attirer la haine et le mépris de toute la horde, au point d’être obligé de la quitter et de se retirer ailleurs.”
The account given by Livingstone adds an important fact.
“The government is patriarchal, each man being, by virtue of paternity, chief of his own children. They build their huts around his . . . Near the centre of each circle of huts there is a spot called a ‘kotla,’ with a fireplace; here they work, eat, or sit and gossip over the news of the day. A poor man attaches himself to the kotla of a rich one, and is considered a child of the latter. An underchief has a number of these circles around his; and the collection of kotlas around the great one in the middle of the whole, that of the principal chief, constitutes the town.”
This last statement shows how the original patriarchal group becomes at once both enlarged and modified by addition of men having no blood-relationship to its members. Everywhere during turbulent times, it must have happened that a fugitive or a “kin-broken” man, being in danger when living alone, or surrounded only by his small family-group, joined a large family-group for sake of safety; and, in doing this, became subordinate to its head. The result, as indicated by Livingstone among South Africans, is tacitly explained by Du Chaillu in his description of the West Africans.
“The patriarchal form of government was the only one known; each village had its chief, and further in the interior the villages seemed to be governed by elders, each elder, with his people, having a separate portion of the village to themselves. There was in each clan the ifoumou, foumou, or acknowledged head of the clan (ifoumou meaning the ‘source,’ the ‘father’).”
“Every one is under the protection of some one. If, by death, a negro is suddenly left alone, he runs great risk of being sold into slavery . . . Every one must have an elder to speak his palavers for him . . . Any free man, by a singular custom, called bola banda . . . can place himself under the protection of the patriarch, who is thus chosen.”
This practice, joined with the practice of giving to the head of the group the title “father,” naturally leads to the result that, in subsequent generations, those of outside derivation come to regard themselves as actual descendants of the original head of the group. The formation of Highland clans, each formed of men all having the same surnames, exhibited the process among ourselves.
Edition: current; Page: [434]Everywhere affiliation of strangers has been prompted both by the desire of fugitives for safety and the desire of the group to increase its strength. We see this alike in the adoption of a brave vanquished man into a tribe by savages, in the adoption into the family among the Romans, and in the acceptance of immigrant men-at-arms by feudal lords. So was it, probably, among the Semitic tribes in early days. The quarrel between the men of Abraham and those of Lot, was most likely a quarrel between the two masses of followers, who were mostly neither children nor slaves but affiliated outsiders.
Of course the status of those who are alien in blood to the patriarchal group, almost necessarily differs from that of its members—differs more or less according to ideas and circumstances, and in some cases very greatly. An example of extreme and permanent inferiority of position, is given by Sir Henry Maine concerning a case in which the patriarchal group was a conquering group. He says that in certain villages of Central and Southern India, there is an hereditary class of “outsiders,” who are looked upon as “essentially impure,” and who, though “not included in the village . . . are an appendage solidly connected with it; they have definite village duties, one of which is the settlement of boundaries . . . They evidently represent a population of alien blood, whose lands have been occupied by the colonists or invaders forming the community.”
Where family-systems and caste-systems are less marked, and where union with the group has been voluntary, there is less difference in the position of the alien; and there may eventually come absorption into it. But inevitably permission to join the group is made dependent on obedience to its head, and the giving to him of services in return for protection. The transaction is analogous to that which, during the feudal stage, was known as “commendation:” subjection being exchanged for safety, and labour being regulated compulsorily.
Edition: current; Page: [435]§ 780. Concerning this formation and expansion of the patriarchal group, we have to note, further, that it is in part determined by a state of chronic hostility among groups. Other instances beyond those furnished by Africa, may be named as showing this. One of them comes to us in the remark of M. de Laveleye respecting the peoples of the Balkan principalities:—
“The southern Slavs escaped the influence of the civil law, by reason of the perpetual wars which devastated their territory, and more especially in consequence of the Turkish invasion. Beaten, isolated, and thrown back on themselves, their only thought was the religious preservation of their traditional institutions, and of their local autonomy. This is the cause of their family communities surviving to our own times, without being subjected to the influence either of the Roman law, or that of feudalism.”
The statement of Mr. Arthur Evans, to be hereafter quoted in another connexion, verifies this explanation.
But the chief purpose of this chapter is simply to indicate the link between paternal regulation and communal regulation. The growth of the family-group into the patriarchal group, and presently into the enlarging cluster of relatives, brings extension and modification of the primitive paternal government, which takes place by insensible steps. The foregoing sections, illustrating this transition, prepare us for entering upon the subject of communal regulation.